Wow... that's a lot of experience you all have expressed there!
Some interesting pieces from all of your posts thus far + my current experience may provide a clearer picture(sorry!) on the subject of FOSS and digital imaging.
Personally, I too may shift to an other OS, especially for the colorspace and calibration issues some of you mentioned... but for now, and for the last 15 years FOSS has been my computing platform. I run CEntOS on the server, Fedora on the desktop.
Erik, I have a similar workflow... and dcraw has been doing OK... but I'm new to this, and have not printed larger than 5x7 of an all digital image, yet
. Nice suggestion to blur the artifacts! Holy cow! That kind of "fix" would put me off dcraw too.
David, you do bring up interesting points about software and hardware constraints. FOSS has those too, as almost all of you pointed out the shortcomings of GIMP and maximum 8bbp.
All of you comment on how poor a desktop experience FOSS offers, yet merely programmed or server tasks are good to great. I would concur that X11 and calibration is weak--although I have got xcalib and lcms working, I've not bought the hardware calibration widget, yet--and that GIMP, while good for web/digital only image processing, is really nowhere near CS/Photoshop. Thus far, I've used monica for monitor gamma correction; recompiled ImageMagick with lcms support; bought the pro license to VueScan--a couple years ago, for my film scanner--and this supports many RAW formats too; and I also bought the Joe Holmes "Sampler" of ICC profiles to play around with the odd profile I could find...
...after initial experiences with VueScan, C1LE, UFRaw, RawTherapee, etc. I realized it was too soon to be in the digital equivalent of a darkroom. Yes, I know "the negative is the score. The print is the performance"-AA... but, as I mentioned in my intro post, I want to make good captures first and not foster bad habits in RAW and post with "Auto Levels" and other WB corrections. Not that this is a "Bad Thing"(TM), to use "Auto Levels", or AWB! It took me a while to learn about ISO400 film and what aperture and speed to use... a lightmeter? Heck, that's just one perspective
So for now, I am hacking BASH to process batches of RAW and DNG files. When I find some keepers among them... then I'll devote more effort to the digital darkroom.
I will follow up with my tools, hardware and software, versions and the inevitable "glue" of hacks needed to get some sort of result! Erik has me wanting to find artifacts where I did not see them before... even if I find them, I'll still be pleased to have learned to see them at all!
Thanks for your posts... are there any other FOSS-using folk?
rgds,
Dave